BY YEJIDE GBENGA-OGUNDARE
A major concern for the average woman is the risk of developing breast cancer and it is natural to wonder what steps can be taken to prevent this especially when there are risk factors like family history.
What can be done to reduce risk of breast cancer? According to research, lifestyle changes can decrease the risk of breast cancer, even in women with high risk. Indeed, it is said that breast cancer prevention starts with healthy habits like limiting alcohol and staying physically active and food choices may help cut the odds of having breast cancer.
If you are trying to prevent the likelihood of breast cancer, the following steps and change in lifestyle may help:
Limit alcohol: If you’re a woman who has two or three servings a day of wine, beer, or liquor, your risk is 20 percent higher than one who doesn’t drink at all; have no more than one drink a day.
Regular physical activity can help to lower the risk of breast cancer. 150 minutes of moderate exercise or 75 minutes of harder, vigorous workouts over the course of a week is recommended.
Balanced diet can help you maintain a healthy weight, which also lowers your chance of breast cancer. Extra pounds, particularly if you put them on as an adult, are linked to a higher risk of breast cancer especially in women who have been through menopause.
Use of tobacco is linked to a higher risk of breast cancer, especially in younger women who haven’t gone through menopause. The rate at which you smoke, the age when you started, and how long you continue all affect how likely you are to get breast cancer.
Type of tissue: it is a fact that breasts have different makeups. If your breasts have less fatty flesh and more milk glands and supportive tissue, they are referred to as dense and this raises the risk of breast cancer and make, abnormal cells harder to spot on scans. If you have dense breasts, there’s need to get screened more often or use more advanced screening tests. Mammograms are one of the effective ways to measure tissue type.
Some medications like hormone replacement therapy to ease menopause symptoms or prevent bone fractures when taken in combination of estrogen and progesterone increase the risk of breast cancer.
Also, some hormonal forms of contraception; pills and some IUDs have been linked to a slightly higher chance of breast cancer. But they can also protect you against other types of tumors.
Women who eat plenty of these vegetables and fruits in addition to fiber have a lower risk of breast cancer, Scientists say fiber-rich diet can help your health in other ways, like lowering your odds of diabetes and heart disease.
Women exposed to a lot of light at night as a result of shift work or living in well-lit areas may have a higher risk of breast cancer. If you can, try to control how much light you are around at night.
Get enough Vitamin D. A good source of Vitamin D can be through foods like salmon, oysters, sardines, and fortified foods like milk and orange juice. When you don’t get enough of this nutrient, your risk of breast cancer may go up.
Check your toiletries for chemicals that might be able to trigger hormone-positive breast cancer. An example is parabens, which can act like a weak estrogen in your body.
Breastfeeding might play a role in breast cancer prevention. The longer you breastfeed, the greater the protective effect.
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